After a couple of presentations from the Chief Financial Officer, a pair of consultation engagement opportunities for the public and a few months of workshops and information sessions, the members of Prince Rupert City Council will be asked to provide direction to the financial department tonight.
Providing for their final words perhaps when it comes to their decisions on the 2019 Budget and Financial Plan.
The CFO's request for direction is included as part of the Council Agenda for this evening's 7PM council session, with the approval this evening, if provided, the first step towards adoption of the 2019 Five year Financial Plan and 2019 Property Tax Bylaw.
Prior to the sparsely attended public engagement sessions of March, the CFO had outlined that the city was delivering a budget surplus this year with no increases planned to the residential mill rate and a recommended decrease of 2 per cent to the mill rate for 2019, which should bring some property tax relief to some residents depending on what your BC Assessment rate is set at.
The average cost savings to a taxpayer should be around a 28 dollar reduction in taxes should all go according to the CFO's forecast.
Council could decided to change that recommendation, should they follow up on some of the contributions from the public engagement period or other presentations where calls for additional funding for community groups was suggested as one option that Council might want to consider.
As the end of March brought the close of the public engagement period Councillor Barry Cunningham had urged residents to participate and to make sure that their voices were head on Budget issues, suggesting at the time that without the contribution of the public Council could for the most part assume that the public were in support of everything that the Council had proposed.
"Remember that this is a two-way street. If we don't hear from you, we assume that your like everything that we're proposing'" -- Councillor Barry Cunningham, March 2019
With only four residents speaking at the two public engagement sessions, other than email, phone or on the street conversations, the guidance of the public would seem to be one of two themes
That of acceptance of the city's plans, or more worrisome for civic oversight on major issues, that of indifference by the public when it comes to the Budget process as outlined over the last two months.
In the end it will be the responsibility of council tonight to deliver on a comment that Councillor Nick Adey provided at the first budget review of February, when he spoke of a need for balance.
"What we need to do to strike a balance if we can between those things that we know we have to do related to public safety we've had lots of conversations about water, I think that conversation carries on but also some of the initiatives that effect the livability in the community, in terms of refurbishing downtown and those kinds of projects I think we have to get the balance right" -- Councillor Nick Adey, February 2019
Tonight, we'll get some indication as to which way that scale of balance has going to tilt.
A review of the 2019 Budget process can be found on the City's website here.
A look at some of our notes from the start of the process to the first step towards adopting the 2019 Financial plan ahead can be reviewed here.
Cross posted from the North Coast Review.
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